1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to binding processes in a network system. More specifically, the present invention relates to ensuring that processes are bound to an active remote method invocation (RMI) process by monitoring the status of the RMI process.
2. Related Art
Administration of large, multi-server, computing environments is a field of growing interest as the number and size of large, multi-server computing environments grows. The field of multi-server system administration and management focuses on maintaining the physical operation of a multitude of computer systems, often referred to as nodes, connected in a network. This task includes a number of functions, including adding, modifying and removing nodes, users, tools, and roles; defining groups of nodes; authorizing users to perform operations on nodes; installing, maintaining and configuring hardware; installing and upgrading operating system and application software; and applying software patches, among other functions.
A typical network includes a plurality of nodes, which are managed by a service control manager (SCM) running on a central management server (CMS). The nodes comprise a service control manager cluster, and can be further organized into node groups. In a CMS, a plurality of processes, referred to as “daemons,” are employed to perform tasks essential to run the network. The daemons are processes that perform tasks such as logging management actions by the SCM, managing users, and monitoring tasks assigned to nodes.
The daemons performing the above tasks may be located on differing JAVA® virtual machines (JVM), and remote method invocation (RMI) daemons are run in the network to allow daemons to communicate with one another. The RMI daemons serve as locators for daemons in the network, with agent daemons on each node accessing the RMI daemons in order to determine the network address, or universal resource locator (URL), for daemons in the network. A daemon in the network becomes accessible to users or other daemons by registering its URL in a URL list of an RMI daemon. This is commonly referred to as the daemon “binding” with the RMI daemon.
In conventional networks, if an RMI daemon becomes inactive for some reason, functioning daemons (and other processes) in the network remain bound to the inactive RMI daemon. In this case, it is not possible to communicate with the daemons bound to the inactive RMI daemon, because active RMI daemons would not include these daemons in their URL lists. In response to this situation, the network system restarts the daemons bound with the inactive RMI daemon. When the daemons restart, they are required to go through the process of registering with a new, active RMI daemon, which is time-consuming and introduces delay into the operation of the network.
Therefore, a need exists for a method of binding processes in a network that does not require restarting all of the processes bound with an RMI process when the RMI process becomes inactive.